He is not the only victim so far. Healthcare professionals, emergency responders, persons who have travelled from abroad and patients suffering from various ailments, as well as their families, are increasingly being subjected to social avoidance, rejection, denial of healthcare and even physical violence as genuine fear of COVID-19 quickly degenerates to stigmatisation and discrimination.

Some doctors in the frontline have talked of people generally keeping away from them, and some literally sprinting away when they see them.

But even the medics have been accused of perpetrating the same. A family in Ganjoni, Mombasa county, claimed their son was condemned to death by medics who abandoned him at the hour of need due to fears he had COVID-19.

Word has it that celebrated author Ken Walibora remained unattended for hours at the Kenyatta National Hospital, where he had been rushed in critical condition and later died, owing to fear of the coronavirus among some of the medics on duty.

Human beings are hard-wired to physically distance themselves from others who could infect them.

People are thus naturally justified to be fearful in the face of a highly-contagious virus that has social distancing as the basic measure to curb its spread.

But while the caution and fear are actually a good thing in these circumstances, escalating this to stigma could prove counterproductive.

While it starts as an individual problem, stigma ends up hurting everyone by generating general fear or anger towards other people.

It triggers widespread social isolation and misinformation that stops us from moving forward.

This explains why the process of tracing COVID-19 contacts and patients must, for instance, not appear to be punitive.

This explains why members of the public should not be asked to report ‘suspects’ as if they are criminals.

Such an approach greatly discourages people who have symptoms of the disease, or those who have had contact with someone with COVID-19 from voluntarily coming out so that they receive adequate testing and care.

They are scared of being labelled as “the one with the coronavirus”, a dangerous situation as it means they end up exposing everyone else around them to transmission.

Such actions could prove particularly deadly in the case of a fast-spreading disease such as coronavirus.

This calls for a fresh emphasis on social responsibility and solidarity in the ongoing war. We have a pressing collective responsibility to help correct the growing misconceptions and counter the nascent stigma.

Authorities in the health sector are best positioned to spearhead this undertaking by raising awareness about COVID-19 without increasing fear as well as untiringly sharing accurate info about how the virus spreads.

They should also share the need for social support for people suffering from the disease, those who have already recovered and their families.

Similar support should go to people who have returned to the country, anyone subjected to mandatory quarantine, and those suffering from chronic diseases.

The general public should on its part gang up against the spread of fake news and hearsay, especially on social media.

Scare mongers posting and sharing old unrelated videos, pictures and ‘news’ on pandemic-related violence, mistreatment and other negatives are only making a bad situation worse and have to be stopped.

Let us not condone or excuse stigmatization. Stigma will only serve to turn us against each other at a time when our shared vulnerability to the novel coronavirus is expected to be the driving force that gives us the unity of purpose.

We must remember that the coronavirus - not the people with the disease or affected by it - is the enemy.

The writer is Milan Kiplagat, a regular commentator on social economic and political affairs.

The views expressed here are his and do not in any way represent the position of TUKO.co.ke

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